help-dev

help-dev is a command for Claude Code from punt-labs/z-spec. It costs 10 tokens per session (1,840 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

An interactive tutorial for creating a first Z specification, where Z is a formal notation for describing system state and valid changes. It guides the user from choosing a real problem through checking and model analysis.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to model systems such as job queues, login sessions, lending records, inventory, or staged workflows. The tutorial asks questions, creates the specification, and leads toward a fuzz-clean, model-checked result.
Why use it?
It helps developers who are new to formal specifications turn a concrete stateful system into a checked model instead of starting with abstract commands.

Command for Claude Code

Written for Claude Code: shipped in a Claude Code plugin.

Part of the z-spec-dev plugin — 42 commands, 1 hook shipped together

Good fit Use it to model systems such as job queues, login sessions, lending records, inventory, or staged workflows. The tutorial asks questions, creates the specification, and leads toward a fuzz-clean, model-checked result.

Compare 6 commands from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add commands/punt-labs/z-spec/help-dev
Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/punt-labs/z-spec

Made for: Claude Code.

Or install z-spec-dev, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 42 commands, 1 hook.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

agentmods badge for help-dev

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/commands/punt-labs/z-spec/help-dev/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/commands/punt-labs/z-spec/help-dev)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/commands/punt-labs/z-spec/help-dev"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/commands/punt-labs/z-spec/help-dev/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>

Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.

agentmods 80×15 button for help-dev

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/commands/punt-labs/z-spec/help-dev"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/commands/punt-labs/z-spec/help-dev.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 10 Only the description is in the session, so the agent can decide to use it. The body loads when it is invoked.
When invoked 1,840 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5.1 $0.00010 $0.01840
Opus 5.5 $0.00004 $0.00736
Sonnet 5.5 $0.00002 $0.00368
Haiku 4.5 $0.00001 $0.00184

Measured 1mo ago against content hash 13c8d5658612, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-10-07, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

help-dev scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 1mo ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

plugin/commands/help-dev.md · 149 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 149 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Z Specification Plugin Help

Run this as an interactive getting-started flow. Do not display the material below as a static document — the goal is for the user to leave this conversation holding a fuzz-clean, model-checked Z specification of a problem they actually have, not a page they scrolled past.

Getting Started: Model Your Own Problem

Walk the user through these steps in order. Do not skip ahead to the command table below until this path is complete or the user asks for it directly.

If /z-spec-dev:check-dev or /z-spec-dev:test-dev refuses because z-spec isn't enabled in this repository, run /z-spec-dev:enable-dev first, then resume the step that was refused.

1. Find the stateful system

If the user's request already names a system to model, use it. Otherwise ask: "What's a stateful system you'd like to model? Something with data that changes over time and rules about what states are valid — a job queue, a login session, a library's lending records, an inventory, a workflow with stages." One or two sentences from the user is enough to start; /z-spec-dev:code2model-dev will ask follow-up questions if the description is ambiguous.

2. Draft the specification

Run /z-spec-dev:code2model-dev <their description>. This writes a first .tex spec to docs/ with given sets, a state schema, an Init schema, and a few operations — the raw material, not a finished spec.

3. Type-check it

Run /z-spec-dev:check-dev <the file>. fuzz will very likely report errors on a first draft — that is normal, not a failure. Fix each one and re-run until /z-spec-dev:check-dev reports OK. This loop, not the first draft, is where the spec actually gets built.

4. Model-check it

Run /z-spec-dev:test-dev <the file>. probcli animates the spec and explores its reachable states. If it reports a counter-example, that is the model telling you something true about the specification as written — walk the user through what the counter-example means and fix the spec (an invariant, a precondition, a bound) rather than the report.

Read the full file on GitHub · 149 lines

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 1mo ago First seen · 149 lines · 10 tokens per session scan A 13c8d5658612

Subscribe to this mod's changes

help-dev is a command published in the GitHub repository punt-labs/z-spec (5 stars, last pushed yesterday), licensed MIT. It adds 10 tokens to every session and 1,840 once invoked, about $0.0000 per session on Opus 5.5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-31.